A wide range of patients must be protected against unsafe and unhealthful movement--principally falling out of body supports such as a bed, tables and chairs, or by moving their body portions, and thereby rupturing sutures, or otherwise causing further injury to already impaired body portions. Without being secured in such supports by health care personnel, such patients are likely to cause serious injury to themselves. Such patients include comparative invalids, as well as those who have sufficient consciousness and strength to attempt to disengage such restraints; or to engage in substantial movement, but who are also subject to sufficient aggression, disorientation, or other debilitating condition, that disengaging their own restraints would likely result in injury to them. However, since the subject being restrained is a patient who is suffering from a medical disability, such restraint must be comfortable and not overly confining in use to be acceptable.
Manually tied restraint devices are shown in the vests of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,488,544 and 3,265,065, among others.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,136,581 is directed to an infant's Harness, comprising a vest A of a back panel 10, front panels 12, 14 one strap 16 and a ring 18. It lacks paired fastening straps and companion anchoring straps adapted for interlinking loop means. The sole fastening strap 16 and 20 simply wrap around a chair back 28. U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,840 to Rasure is directed to a Pediatric restraint garment, basically for a bed-ridden child patient to inhibit torso movement, both longitudinally and transversely. It has a flap-like extension 22 from central panel member 18 to overlap front panel 16. A plurality of parallel, contact-fastening strips 24 form the vest closure. Such Velcro-type fasteners are located so as to be readily undone by an adult patient.
The act of strap tying is itself somewhat awkward and time-consuming for valuable health care personnel, particularly with an agitated patient.
Prior art tie-less restraint devices are bulky, complicated, restrictive in use, or they provide securing means which are accessible to the patient, and thus are susceptible to patient disengagement. Additionally, such devices pose special risks to patient safety.
Long-used restraint devices, are medically recognized as capable of serious mishap. Certain devices are described as dangerous; yet necessary evils in geriatric medicine; Journal of Kentucky Medical Association, August 1986, p. 397 et seq.; "Accidental Deaths in Aged Using Protective Devices." Recent reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), report several deaths caused by these vests in nursing homes, including cases of strangulation due to vest restraints and proposals that current vests be used more judiciously; JAMA, Nov. 21, 1986--Vol. 256, No. 19, p. 2724; and JAMA, Nov. 21, 1986--Vol. 255, No. 7, p. 905.
In sum, despite their long history of use and the variety of forms offered, serious mishaps do occur to agitated patients, even when currently available vest restraints are employed.
A newer form of a universal, tie-less patient torso restraint device is disclosed and claimed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,053, issued May 23, 1989. It embodies several components also seen in the presently described torso restraint vest. However, the presently disclosed vest presents a number of practical features not specifically taught or suggested by the '053 patent. My earlier restraint, while already enjoying professional acceptance, does not lend itself as well to the situations in which the vest reguired size adjustments to fit different torso configurations, and also did not allow enough chest movement for free & easy respiration.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved torso restraint which is not subject to the above described limitations and hazards in use; and which is simple to secure and facile to release by the attending personnel. It is a further object of the invention to provide a garment which is readily formable into a vest and is tethered by a plurality of straps that are consistently secured and quickly releasable by the therapist.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a restraint vest wherein the tethering straps are individually adjustable to enable minimal patient shifting while restrained and thus preclude mattress sores. It is a further object of the invention to provide a restraining vest from which the patient can be removed more handily than is possible with currently used restraints, sometimes entailing separately tied knots for the strap anchoring.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a belt-like harness for the lower patient torso, which cooperates with the present vest restraint and so precludes a vested patient, who is also a chair-bound, from wriggling down and out of the supporting chair even while his upper torso is adequately vested.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification and from the drawings and the claims.